The 2018 FIFA World Cup is right around the corner and boy is it a good time to be a football fan! The frenzy and excitement that accompanies the Worldwide soccer tournament aside, there is no shortage of ways for fans across the globe to tune in. Local fans will have 30+ games aired live on NTV Kenya, thanks to a deal between Kwese Free Sports and Nation Media Group. Safaricom subscribers now have an option to stream the games on their mobile phones.

Kwese, iFlix and Safaricom have come to a partnership that will see Safaricom users get ‘Unlimited’ bandwidth to stream all 64 matches of the 2018 FIFA World Cup, right on their smartphones.

“Today is an important milestone for Kwesé iflix. Not only are we able to offer customers the best in sports and entertainment through a personalised and localised service on our Kwesé iflix app that suits our customers’ lifestyle, but are thrilled to announce a deeper partnership with Kenya’s leading communication service provider Safaricom,” Mayur Patel, CEO, Kwese iflix, stated.

Safaricom users will be able to subscribe to the Giga Football bundle using the normal *544# USSD code during the World Cup season. Payment can be done using either M-PESA or Airtime. The rates are as follows:

  • Ksh. 99 per day, users get complete access to all of Kwesé-iflix (VIP) content and the Live World Cup matches for the day
  • For Ksh. 50 per day – existing iflix subscribers get unlimited data for the day, together with their existing iflix content and of course, all the World Cup matches for the day.
  • Ksh. 20 for 3hrs – where you get unlimited access for 3hrs. With this, you could watch the pre-match commentaries, the match itself and post match analysis.

“Leveraging Safaricom’s superfast 4G+, 4G and 3G networks, subscribers will have the option to stream Kwesé iflix’s world-class programming, including the FIFA World Cup 2018 to any device of their choice, download or stream live for an unbelievable price of KES 99, which includes for the first time ever, unlimited data and unlimited Kwesé iflix access for 24 hours.”

I may not be a football fan but, honestly, this has got me excited. It will be interesting to see how well this performs or how many people will even want to watch the matches on their phones. I guess those people that happen to get stuck in traffic while a big game is playing would love this.

Featured Image courtesy of Capital Sports